Blessing and Court

We had a weekend filled with events which helped keep my mind off of timelines.  We had a fund raiser on Friday and Sunday.  We also took more pics to send to B.   

Today would have been my mom's birthday.  I have written before about her.  There are a handful of days that have not gotten easier - this being one.  It just got brighter, though.  I have been thinking a lot about her.  She would have loved getting to know B.  She would have been so very excited.  It seems so right that we would have gotten our court date on her birthday.  She would have wanted to be involved. 

COURT DATE: May 25.  

New purpose!

Last week was hard, waiting.  I told you I am not good at waiting.  More than anything I felt like my wheels were spinning.  Then we figured out one of the many things we need to be doing.  We are on a mission.  We are learning Amharic words and phrases.  Even though we think that B may have spoken a different language or dialect, we know that she is being exposed to Amharic now.  Our goals is to learn as much as we can before we travel.  Yesterday, we have learned I love you, yes, no, hello, and goodbye.  We are taping them up around the house.  My house really will look like a large bulletin board by the time baby girl gets home (:

Week 1 PR (post referral)

I really want to keep this as a journal for B.  I want her to know how much she meant to us before she came home.  So the counting continues.  We are one week post referral, waiting for a court date.  What have we been doing:

-studying her picture, imagining her little body adding a different energy to the house.

-preparing a little care package for her-photo album, love, cardigan, and a small toy

- because she is considered an older child (2+) we were able to write her a letter that Gladney will translate and read to her.  Wow!  What a gift to us, but more difficult than I thought it would be!  What do you write to a toddler who has never met you?  We went the "we love you and are getting ready for you" route.  We also were able to include a photo.  (See above.)  We had to wait until 8:30 before everyone was home at the same time.  We made a poster (cropped because it has her name on it) and then took the picture with the timer mechanism.  Yeah!  It turned out, with a couple funny out takes where we were trying to figure out how to work the camera:)

-stalking those returning from Ethiopia to see if they may have caught a glimpse of our little girl or captured her in a photo

-serious nesting.  See post below on patience.  Wow, did I fail yesterday to show patience.  I was a bear to any and all that made a mess.  My kids do something that I refer to as a "Frosty" as in the snowman.  They come into the house and disrobe as if they had melted and left their clothes in a puddle.  I usually have a sense of humor about it, not these days.  I went back and read my post....today I was better.  I hope to be even better tomorrow.  I have time (unfortunately).  I do not have to get everything organized and set for B this week.  

-even more motivation to workout.  I want to carry her around...I need more upper body strength.  by product of working out-more energy and I feel strong and healthy.

-lots of praying-to keep her healthy, to prepare her little heart for a change, to prepare us to meet all of her needs (emotional and physical), speedy and successful court date

-talking and emailing friends.  I have made some amazing new friends in the past year.

What I did not know about Love

I full expected to love B, just not so soon.  I was going to "pace" myself. What a joke!  I know that sometimes in "international adoption" things don't work out like you expect.  I have had friends get and then lose a referral.  I now understand what they went/ are going through.  She is so fully in our hearts.  I saw a picture of B sent to me by another adopting parent that had her nanny in it.  The nanny had her hand on B's head in the most nurturing and loving way.  I feel so indebted to the nanny and Gladney.  I am so thankful that B is being so well loved.  

The day after our referral, I read this piece on patience.  I am including it in our blog so I can always find it when I need it.  It is written by Barbara Bush.  It spoke to me on so many levels.  

Contented Heart, Patient Heart

It is common to hear women bemoaning their lack of patience as if it were the most difficult gift to pry from God's hand.  in fact impatience stems almost solely from our exaggerated notions of what is due us.  If we could lower our estimation of the importance of our time, our plans and our feelings, we could find ourselves almost automatically more patient.

If we are impatient about things that anger God-repeated sin, inattention to His word, social injustice- we cannot really be called impatient (as long as our opinions are expressed in love.)  Neither can we expect a woman to remain totally unperturbed if someone smashes into her new car.  Certainly "learning patience" is not an acceptable reason for failure to discipline a rebellious child.  Patience is not he same thing as resignation or the cynical attitude that always expects the worst possible outcome.

Patience is a more positive trait.  it is the ability to bear affliction, delay and interruption with calmness, perseverance and confidence in the goodness of God (Colossians 1:11-12).  It is inward peace as well as outward control.  It is the submission of our schedules, our viewpoints, our dreams, to the greater plan of God, with he conviction that he has a good reason for every delay he allows to come our way.

I am looking forward to a quiet week.  I am looking forward to cleaning closets, organizing, and watching a few movies. My A&P class has the week off.  The fundraiser that I was helping with was last Saturday earned over $300,000.  My schedule just lightened up!  

***  B has been in a crib.  Should we keep her in a crib?  

Referral!!!

You, O' Lord are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness. Psalm 86:13

Have you ever had a moment in your life where you really want to capture in words the bigness of the moment and then the words are washed away?  How do you fall in love so completely and so quickly?  All I could  think about was this scripture.  Wow.  We got our  referral last night.  She is perfect.  She is almost 2 1/2y.  She is a little peanut.  Quiet and shy.  We don't need to call her Little M anymore for Little Morgan.  She has a name.  A beautiful name.  So until we are allowed to call her by her name... she is B.  Do you mind adding us to your prayers?  We would like to get her home and snuggled within her new family.

For some lightness...our referral story.  I have been attached to my cell phone.  In class, I keep it on vibrate.  In meetings, it is on my desk (so rude, but oh well).  It is on me at all moments because I was not going to miss that call.  Yesterday, bible study to working out with a trainer (I heard that we need endurance) to orthodontist appt for Eliza.  I got home and was making a nice dinner for the kids and me because Jason was having a quick dinner with his two good friends.  Jason calls and says, "I just had an interesting conversation...."  My mind begins to race...."did my husband have an argument with someone?"  He continues, "with Jessica."  So, he takes his friend's car and is home to get the call and the email.  Yes, my phone was out of battery and I did not get the call.  He was so good and would not let Jessica tell him anything (not that she would have.)  So that nice dinner... never got eaten.  Actually, I have not slept or eaten much since that amazing call.  I loved my OB's when I was pregnant and now I love Jessica.

I know none of this probably makes any sense.  Thank God that I don't need to take an A&P test because that A would nose dive in a day.  We are just beyond excited.

Amazing Grace

Click on this link to hear some thing amazing! (turn off the music to the left and then turn up your volume... you will not be disappointed)  This song was written by a reformed slave runner. He wrote this song when he understood all that he did.  The story behind the song is what I call a "techno-color moment."  It is the moment the Wizard of Oz is in color and you can 't go back to black and white.   We all have those moments in our lives that we have learned/seen/experienced something so amazing/heartbreaking/awe-inspiring that we can not go back to life as we knew it.  Becoming a parent for the first time was just one of those moments, for me.  I continue to hear things from people who have gone to Ethiopia that they come back "changed."  I imagine that they have experienced one of those "techno-color moments."  I imagine, that I, too will see my life pre-Ethiopia and post-Ethiopia.  One of my friends is doing something about it.  Check it out.

Seventeen

Week Seventeen done!  For some reason this was a hard week for me.  I felt like my wheels were spinning.  I want to start planning and preparing for Little M.  Then I am reminded, "Man plans  and God laughs".  I think the most difficult part of the waiting is not seeing anyone on the FBI move.  Then Friday morning and there is movement.  One family through court, and three families hit the referral list.  Yeah! It is amazing how much better I feel.  Meanwhile, I stalk the FBI list.  You would think that an exam in Anatomy and Physiology and committee work would keep me busy!